McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has highlighted Oscar Piastri’s “exceptional” rate of learning as the standout quality from his rookie Formula 1 season.
The Woking squad capitalised on Alpine’s failure to provide Piastri with an F1 race seat in 2022 to prize the Australian into its ranks as a direct replacement for Daniel Ricciardo.
But the resulting legal battle that ensued, along with Piastri’s sharp ascent through the junior categories, heightened the pressure on him heading into his maiden F1 campaign.
While McLaren struggled in the early stages with an undeveloped launch-spec car, the team’s introduction of a sizeable upgrade in July catapulted it into front-running territory.
Although Piastri only amassed two podiums compared to Lando Norris’ seven, the 22-year-old usurped his team-mate to secure victory for McLaren in the Qatar Sprint race.
Stella admits that Piastri’s performances in his debut season went even “beyond our expectations”, particularly concerning the brisk upward trajectory of his improvement.
Reflecting on Piastri’s season, in which he classified ninth in the standings, Stella said: “Our analysis is that Oscar’s season has just been exceptional, and when I say exceptional I mean beyond our expectations.
“It’s the rapidity with which he learns that I think makes him exceptional. And this has been true in whatever scale you take, within the timeframe of a race, within the timeframe of an event, within the timeframe of the season.
“His gradient is so impressive, which obviously creates expectations for next season. And expectations require work to be confirmed. But the other good thing with Oscar is that he’s such a grounded person, he’s so committed.
“And if anything, working with him will be more about what we need to do to confirm this gradient, work that effectively has already started in terms of planning ahead onto the winter.”
Piastri proved to be a match for Norris when it came to one-lap speed across the second half of the year but experienced trouble retaining pace with the Briton in race trim.
But Stella, who previously drew comparisons between Piastri and two-time champion Fernando Alonso, believes his measured approach will see his growth be sustainable.
“Maybe one of the key enablers why he can grow so rapidly is just the man beyond the driver,” Stella expanded.
“He’s so calm, he’s so good at keeping himself in a status in which he can use the best of his talent.
“I don’t have that quality. I have to think about my psychology to actively keep myself in the most productive state. For Oscar, this seems to come quite naturally or maybe he worked throughout his young career on that, I don’t know, but certainly, it is remarkable.
“And even when I’ve seen great drivers, currently or in the past, all of them sort of sometimes underperform because they don’t stay in the status in which they give their best. I think for Oscar, this is quite natural.”
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